Ethiopia mobile internet still off after a week

Addis Ababa – Ethiopians were still unable to surf the web via mobile networks on Tuesday, despite government claims the nationwide internet shutdown, which began a week ago, had been lifted. Africa’s second most-populous country turned off its internet access without warning or explanation last week, briefly depriving even diplomatic buildings, like the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa and the headquarters of the African Union, of internet access.

While service to those two institutions was restored and subscribers to broadband internet say they are now able to get online, access via mobile data – which is most used by businesses and individuals – was still unavailable.

This is despite government assurances that the blockage had been lifted.In a press conference on Monday, Communications Minister Negeri Lencho said the internet had been “partly” shut down for three days last week and that social media sites were the only services that remained blocked.Negeri said the shutdown was a measure necessary to keep students taking annual exams away from distractions on social media.”The only reason is to help our students to concentrate on the exams because we know we are fighting poverty,” Negeri said.Ethiopia’s sole telecommunications provider has blocked social media websites like Facebook and Twitter since anti-government protests broke out last year.

The country is among the least-connected in Africa, with only about 12% of people online, the International Telecommunications Union reported in 2015.

The Brookings Institution think tank released a report last October saying the country only lost around $8.5m when internet access was cut off for weeks during last year’s unrest.

“People invest a lot of money in China, where the internet is already very difficult,” John Ashbourne, Africa economist a London-based Capital Economics told AFP. “These are not insurmountable problems, but they’re frustrations.”

The internet cafe where Abiy Tesfaye works in Addis Ababa’s busy Piazza neighbourhood runs off mobile data and only one customer was using one of his 14 computers.

The business has been suffering for years as more and more people browse the internet with smartphones, Abiy said, and the internet shutdown was the latest blow.

“We lose money, we don’t have the customers. It’s a shame,” he said.

Around the corner, Dereje Alemayehu Nida’s cafe was doing a brisk business in people filling out visa applications and surfing Facebook, but that’s only because his broadband internet access came back online over the weekend after days without connectivity.

“It would have been better if they used another means to control the exams rather than shut down the internet,” Dereje said.

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Why Ethiopia’s Unity is Imperative and Beneficial to All

Over the past quarter century, the narrow nationality based narrative of negating Ethiopia’s remarkable history as an independent political entity embracing a diverse population and religious community; and degrading its world renowned continuity as a beacon of freedom for all black and colonized people everywhere has been pronounced by the TPLF as anathema to both democracy, inclusive, sustainable and equitable development. The TPLF that wields political, economic, spiritual and institutional dominance today over Ethiopia’s 104 million people wants us to believe that its political and economic development architecture can lead all Ethiopians to the “Promised Land.” This make-believe narrative of divide and rule is deceptive and has only served the cunning TPLF and its allies while marginalizing millions. Ethiopia’s continuity is imperative for all its diverse population.

The challenge before us is to provide a compelling narrative on political, social, economic and spiritual inclusion and a democratic architecture to sustain it perpetually. A truly democratic and inclusive state and government avert constant civil conflict, reduces waste and corruption and engenders sustainable development by including all citizens.

Last year’s revolt in Oromia, Amhara, Konso and other places should have informed each and every one of us that the current system is both degrading, dehumanizing and anti-democratic. Renaissance without public voice and participation is a joke. Equally compelling is the premise that Ethiopia’s demise will serve the cause of freedom and democracy for any group. Secession and sectarianism have never proven to be a panacea for social ills. Somalia illustrates the fallacy. By all measurements and indicators the TPLF cunning policy of harmony and renaissance to advance ethnic equality while crushing freedom and equality has instead created an unequal and unjust social system and deep mistrust among citizens in which a narrow band of ethnic elites or state thieves led by the TPLF have literally captured Ethiopia’s fiscal, financial and natural resources for the benefit of those in power.

Those in power are buffeted by a whole set of global actors (investors, diplomats, foundations, NGOs, the UN system) whose national interests are intrinsically connected with the TPLF and its coalition of beneficiaries within the EPRDF. Who then protects the interests of the Ethiopian people?

The TPLF is remarkably adept at persuading and endearing these actors that it serves a global good by fighting terrorism in the Horn of Africa. In the process, the TPLF sacrifices Ethiopian soldiers to preserve its hegemony while enriching its club of robbers and Mafia like thieves big time. In the process, what is abnormal is normalized and sold in the market place of ideas and diplomacy. Trust me; there are buyers of this fallacy.

        

Readers would recall a Forbes commentary that admonished these thieves of state and questioned the audacity of the group to ask for $1 billion in support of drought victims. How does one justify more aid when the entire $30 billion Americans offered the regime was taken out of Ethiopia illicitly? What guarantee is there that the next quarter century won’t be the same as the last that is characterized by suffocating and inept governance, waste of public funds, untold atrocities, killings, maiming, torture, forcible disappearances of and imprisonments of thousands, institutionalized and state sponsored or atleast condoned theft and graft? Ethiopians need freedom, the rule of law and respect for human rights more than they need handouts. This is a system of incurable diseases!!!

The argument in this paper is that ethnic divide and rule won’t serve any person or group. The global community, especially Western governments are wrong to assume that the current regime that crushes dissent is a reliable long term ally against fundamentalism and terrorism in the Horn of Africa. In fact, the current system breeds these. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace presents Western governments and actors a compelling picture that Ethiopia is sliding into fragility further and deeper than ever before. It is happening in front of Western eyes. “The EPRDF position of power remains fundamentally fragile owning primarily to the internal contradictions of the EPRDF regime” itself.

Central to this fragility is the unresolved and simmering issue of lack of freedom and respect for human dignity and rights that continue to serve as the hallmark of the regime. A regime that crushes the human spirit cannot renew society. A regime that bolsters hatred debilitates creativity and productivity.

No amount of self-assessment and self-criticism (ግምገማ) by the regime itself would address the root causes that compelled the TPLF to declare a state of emergency and renew it. No amount of economic transformation and renaissance would empower citizens who cannot bargain or negotiate their fate and make their lives better. No amount of public preaching would feed those who go hungry or are sick or have no proper shelter or whose children have to flee Ethiopia in search of better alternatives. No amount of self-aggrandizement and IMF led celebration of growth without equity would change the structure of the Ethiopian economy and raise per capita income from the current $795 per annum compared to Kenya’s at $1, 516 per annum. No annual celebration by TPLF embassies squandering public funds to honor make-believe growth would change the fact that 750,000 Ethiopians are stuck in Saudi Arabia again because there is no Ethiopian government that cares for them or wants them back in their home country. The TPLF and its allies have literally nothing better to offer them.

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